Product Description

A teenage boy lies on the pavement, bleeding to death from a stab wound; a distraught mum watches, in mute shock, as her daughter suffers a terrifying fatal asthma attack; a young girl is gang raped and her stricken boyfriend takes an overdose; a disturbed young man flings himself in front of a speeding train at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve...Few people can imagine living in a world where such situations are part of everyday life. Yet for London Ambulance Paramedic Lysa Walder, these and thousands of other emergency callouts are part of a day's work: scenes of tragedy, loss and horror - but also stories of triumph and humour, and all the result of an urgent 999 call to the biggest and busiest free ambulance service in the world.Lysa has been an A&E nurse and paramedic for over 15 years. Here, she tells the inside story behind the screaming sirens and flashing blue lights of the emergency services and reveals what it's really like to work in a job that frequently brings paramedic teams face to face with death - and destiny.'When we turn up, whatever the job is, we're trained to handle it. If it's really bad, there's no time to feel useless or helpless - you're too busy. Only afterwards, when you walk away, you think, "Maybe we made a difference." And sometimes you do save a life - or at least kept someone ticking over until we get them to a doctor.'

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83184 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Great Read
I loved this book it was a great read and once i started i could not put it down. I hate reading books but i am a student Paramedic and when i went on placement recently i was given this book by another paramedic to read if i wanted. I read the first few pages and that was it i was stuck. Inbetween job i was reading and every chance i got i would read a couple more pages. Its such a true book and really reflects lots of the jobs acpects. i really enjoyed reading it and finished it in about 4 days, not bad for someone who hates reading. i would recomend and i now look forward to reading A Paramedic's Diary: Life and Death on the Streets: Life and Death in London

Been said before
I bought this after reading the brilliant A Paramedic's Diary: Life and Death on the Streets by London paramedic Stuart Gray. I thought it would be interesting to get a woman's view of the job.
Unfortunately it didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and Stuart Gray tells it better.
There were some good anecdotes - one that sticks in my mind is about a woman whose husband has attacked her with an axe. Lysa Walder asks her if he regularly abuses her and she tells the paramedic that he is a lovely, gentle man. Obviously that is hard to believe judging by the woman's injuries, and it is not until months later that Lysa finds out that the man had an undiagnosed brain tumour and the violence was the first manifestation of it. He had died a short time later.

I'm sure that if I had read 999 first I would have liked it more - it is a quick and easy to read book, but it could do with some editing and does not offer the level of insight that Stuart Gray's book gave me.

Thoroughly good read
I enjoyed this book from start to finish.It is the kind of book that you don't want to put down and I didn't until I had read it!
Funny,sad and true to life. Really enjoyable and well written. An excellent read.